What’s Elon Musk’s endgame with Twitter?

Good morning! It's Friday, April 15th. I'm Shumita Basu.

And I'm Duarte Geraldino. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.

First, a brief update on the war in Ukraine. One of Russia's key warships sunk in the Black Sea. Ukrainian officials claim responsibility, saying they launched a missile at the ship, while Russian officials claim it sank while being towed in a storm. This is a big blow to Russia's naval fleet, and it comes at a time when Ukraine is bracing for a massive Russian offensive.

As always, you can find the latest news on the war in the "Apple News" app.

What is Elon Musk's end game? The world's richest man said this week that he's offering $43 billion to buy Twitter in a hostile takeover. By the way, that number is based off of shares being priced at $54.20, a reference to marijuana. You know, four-twenty. Fifty-four-twenty. Because this is Elon Musk. Now, he claims this isn't a joke, and that he wants to take the publicly traded company private.

Musk says his primary motivation for the purchase is to make the platform a place where free speech can thrive. He's also talked about wanting to add an edit option for tweets, offer a blue-check verification to premium users, and he's even recently suggested converting Twitter's San Francisco offices into a homeless shelter. Though, in fairness, he quickly deleted that tweet, which might explain why he wishes there was an edit button. Musk was also interviewed about his bid for Twitter at a TED conference yesterday.

Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don't care about the economics at all.

But for "Verge" reporter Liz Lopatto, this move seems, well, not at all well thought out.

I think that having someone who is essentially a Twitter troll on the board of Twitter, and then trying to take over Twitter, is very funny in its own right. But it seems like a lot of this is very off-the-cuff.

Musk's announcement came a couple weeks after he became one of the company's largest shareholders. It also came after he was rumored to be joining the Twitter board, but he eventually declined that job.

The idea of Elon Musk taking over the platform is a big deal because of the influence Twitter has over a very specific kind of public discourse. It's where we get everything from official resignation letters by politicians to real-time updates on the war in Ukraine. Still, it doesn't come close to the user numbers on TikTok or Facebook.

In his TED interview, Musk referred to the app as "the de facto town square." Lopatto told us this position excites a lot of conservatives, many of whom feel disgruntled with Twitter after several right-wing users, including Donald Trump, were banned or had their posts removed for violating Twitter's rules.

They think it will be an environment that will be friendlier to them, that might allow, for instance, Donald Trump to come back. Is that real? I don't know. In the filing, Musk called the offer his best and final, though it's still not clear how he would finance this purchase. He's also said if his offer is not accepted, he's going to need to reconsider his position as a shareholder.

COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. The unique kind of grief this is causing for millions of Americans is the subject of a gripping new article in "The Atlantic." It's by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong.

It was easily the hardest story I've had to work on in over two years of covering the pandemic. He gathered the stories of dozens of people who lost loved ones to COVID. There were patterns, ways they suffered that were very different than typical grieving.

Many of the conditions of the pandemic created an environment for grief to fester. People didn't get the social support that they needed, they didn't get to gather in rituals of mourning, like funerals, they didn't get support from those closest to them, often because those people were exhausted or because the pandemic was so politicized.

COVID grief is relentless. Every time people read the news, everywhere they go, the thing that killed someone they love is the main topic. And those who are grieving tell Yong they don't get much sympathy. Often there's harsh judgment instead.

Many people I've talked to, in fact almost everyone I've talked to, said that the first questions they get are things like "Were they vaccinated?" "Did they have preexisting conditions?" Sometimes these questions come before people hear "I'm sorry for your loss."

Every person killed by COVID left on average nine close relatives who are grieving their loss. That means around nine million people in the U.S. are dealing with intense grief. Yong argues the pandemic is revealing and amplifying problems America has caring for people who are grieving.

Even before the pandemic, we weren't great as a culture and a society about handling grief. All of our conceptions about grief are wrong. It doesn't progress according to five predictable stages. Closure is a simplistic myth. Grief can be long, it can be erratic, and it is often ignored.

it's the 75th anniversary of Robinson's first game as the first Black player in the league. Sports journalist Ron Rapoport writes about this in the "LA Times." He says this annual celebration glosses over the fact that the bigotry that existed before Robinson joined the league was largely allowed to persist, and it's one of the reasons why Robinson steered clear of the MLB after retiring.

Rapoport tells the story of the day he interviewed Jackie Robinson and Robinson told him how he really felt about the league. It was June of 1972. Robinson had somewhat reluctantly agreed to come to town because his number, 42, was being retired. He told Rapoport how disappointed he was in baseball, how despite his success in breaking the color barrier, MLB still had never hired a black manager, and how poorly he felt baseball treated its Black players after their playing days were behind them.

As for having his number retired, Robinson told Rapoport that he couldn't care less. He was honored, yes, but if baseball truly wanted to honor him, to celebrate him, Robinson said they would allow baseball players to advance based on their abilities, not the color of their skin.

Keep in mind, this conversation took place when Robinson was 53 years old. His health was deteriorating, he had suffered a heart attack, was diagnosed with diabetes, and he was almost blind. He would die by the end of that year. But a few days before his death, Robinson attended the second game of the '72 World Series in Cincinnati and addressed the crowd. And he said, with a smile, he was proud to be there, but he'd be more proud to one day look out and see a Black face managing in baseball.

Since Robinson died, there have been some Black managers, but they're largely underrepresented. Today, as MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson day, Rapoport wonders whether the league will heed Robinson's words and reckon with his critique of a sport he so loved.

Also this weekend, the National Zoo is celebrating 50 years of giant pandas calling Washington D.C. home. They're calling it "Pandaversary." Pandas ended up at this ZOO as a kind of a fluke. For decades now, they've drawn visitors and called attention to conservation efforts.

"The Washington Post" goes into the origin story. What happened was the Nixons were in China on an official presidential visit in 1972. The First Lady happened to sit next to the Chinese premier at dinner. She noticed a little cigarette tin on the table, with a logo. It had two giant pandas, and she mentioned, sorta offhand, that she loves pandas. So the premier said, I'll give you some. A few weeks later, two giant pandas arrived in the U.S.

Here's First Lady Pat Nixon welcoming the pandas to their new home…

Here at the National Zoo, they will be enjoyed by the millions of people who come from across the country to visit the nation's capital each year, and I think panda-monium is going to break out right at the zoo. Thank you very much. [[LAUGHTER]] [[APPLAUSE]]

China leases pandas to the United States for a fee, and it still claims rights to any new cubs, which, as you probably know, are famously rare and fragile. Panda newborns are about the size of a stick of butter, or about 1/900th the size of its mom on average.

Over the past few decades, giant pandas have gone from being "endangered" to "threatened," which is a less urgent category in the conservation world. And as for the three pandas at the ZOO now, their lease will be up next year, so unless the agreement gets renewed, they'll head back to China by December of 2023.

You can find all these stories, and more, in the "Apple News" app.

And check out our weekend interview show "In Conversation". This week, we take a deep dive into the donor conception industry, how closed and unregulated it is, and how it affects people's lives. You'll hear about one woman who took a "23andMe" test, learned she was conceived using a sperm donor, and confronted her parents about it.

You know, the-- the thing is the way mom and dad have always been with you, that when you get down to asking with the truth, we have to tell you the truth. Just wish you never asked it.

Check out that weekend listen. We'll be back with the news on Monday.